Distria Krasniqi won the gold medal at the Judo Grand Slam in Paris on Friday – which is her first medal in 2024 – showing top form ahead of the Summer Olympics in the French capital this summer.<\/p>\n
The Olympic champion of Kosovo, Krasniqi defeated the British Chelsie Giles thanks to a waza-ari point, which is the second highest point in the sport of judo after the ippon, in a final fight that lasted a full four minutes in the category up to 52 kilograms, writes Radio Free Europe.<\/p>\n
After making it through the first round without a fight, she defeated France’s Leonie Gonzalez in the second round, then triumphed over South Korea’s Seyun Jang for a place in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
The judoka from Kosovo managed to defeat Khorloodoi Bishrelti from the United Arab Emirates to reach the semi-finals, where she knocked out another Japanese player, Kisumi Omari.<\/p>\n
The triumph in the final means that Krasniqi has now won five gold medals in grand slam tournaments in her career, of which three in Paris, while 24 gold medals in general.<\/p>\n
The Grand Slam is among the most important tournaments in the sport of judo.<\/p>\n
28 year-old girl, is already the Olympic champion in the 48-kilogram category from the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, but she aims to win it in the 52-kilogram category in six months in Paris.<\/p>\n
If she achieves this, she would become the first Kosovar woman to win two Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n
She moved from the 48 kilogram category to the 52 kilogram category after the retirement of the legendary judoka Majlinda Kelmendi in 2021.<\/p>\n
Krasniqi, together with Kelmendi and Nora Gjakova, are the only athletes, either in women’s or men’s sports, who have won Olympic gold medals in the history of Kosovar sports.<\/p>\n
Krasniqi ended the year 2023 as the first judoka in the world in her category. In an interview with Radio Free Europe’s Libertas in December, Distria Krasniqi said that judo is “life itself” for her.<\/p>\n
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Distria Krasniqi won the gold medal at the Judo Grand Slam in Paris on Friday – which is her first medal in 2024 – showing top form ahead of the Summer Olympics in the French capital this summer. The Olympic champion of Kosovo, Krasniqi defeated the British Chelsie Giles thanks to a waza-ari point, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":65501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,1803],"tags":[5995,5997,4981,5994,243,151,5996,1828,2270],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n